High-reach demolition excavator
An arm designed to reach the top of a building and bring it down from the top.
At the end of that arm, the weight of the tool is no longer a detail:
it is the deciding factor.
Other names for this machine: high demolition excavator, long front, high reach.
- Category
- CACES R.482A category B1 base; specific configuration
- Status
- Direct carrier of attachments
What it does
the long arm trades reach against permissible load — the weight of the tool governs everything.
The arm makes the whole machine:
it is what decides what can be reached.
Synthetic image.
the concrete comes away in pieces and the reinforcement stays held.
Synthetic image.
An excavator whose boom is designed to reach the top of a building and take it down from above, without explosives and without a wrecking ball.
What it does not do. The long arm trades reach against permissible load.
The weight of the tool at the end of the arm becomes the factor that governs everything.
What governs the fitting of an attachment
-
The class of the machine
It is what bounds the permissible weight and volume of the tool.
A tool that is too heavy is not merely ineffective:
it makes the machine unstable and tires the arm. -
The coupler system
Direct mounting, mechanical, hydraulic or automatic quick coupler, and the type of the coupler itself.
It is the first thing to identify, and the one people get wrong most often. -
The flow of the auxiliary line
Expressed in litres per minute.
A hydraulic tool fed below its flow works badly; fed above it, it overheats and wears out. -
The pressure available
In bar.
The flow makes the speed, the pressure makes the force.
Both are checked, never one without the other. -
The free return to tank
Some tools, hammers and mulchers first among them, require it.
Its absence does not show on a sales sheet and is discovered when fitting. -
The lifting capacity at the working reach
It has nothing to do with the weight of the machine.
It is read on the manufacturer's load chart, at the real reach and height of the work.
One model, as a reference point
The values below hold for this model only.
They are there to give an order of magnitude to anyone who has none, not to serve as a reference.
- Operating weight
- 55 600 kg
- Working height
- 22 m
- Load at the end of the arm
- 3 700 kg
- Arm configuration
- two lengths and two types of arm, without special tooling, in 15 minutes according to the manufacturer
Caveat. The permissible load at the end of the arm is the figure that governs everything:
at 22 m height, 3,700 kg bounds the choice of tool long before the weight of the machine does.
Source. Product page of the manufacturer Caterpillar,
recorded on 1 September 2026.
These values are those of one precise model, at one precise date. They do not describe a category:
there are no characteristics of a compact loader in general, there are those of the model you have.
They change from one year to the next and never replace the data sheet of your machine.
Have your machine checked.
Give us the exact model and the work you have in mind.
We check
the coupler, the flow, the pressure and the capacity on your machine,
and we tell you what fits on it — and what does not.
Written study within 3 working days, complete file.
Tell us about your machine Written study within 3 working days, complete file · no obligation